Kurdish militant leader Abdullah Ocalan has asked his followers in the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) to lay down arms and dissolve the group, potentially ending a decades-long conflict with Turkey that is estimated to have killed at least 40,

Imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan called on his militant group Thursday to lay down its arms and dissolve as part of a new bid to end a four-decade long conflict that has claimed tens of thousands of lives.

Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the Kurdish insurgent group P.K.K., called on his fighters to lay down their arms after decades of battling the Turkish state.